Automated assistants find and engage potential buyers before handing them off to a human

When the 100-plus sales team at Snowflake Computing Inc. had more leads than it could handle, the company assigned each rep a personal assistant: an automated, artificial-intelligence-powered chatbot designed to engage with potential buyers by email or text.

Sales showed a “tangible boost” after just four months, says Denise Persson, chief marketing officer of the San Mateo, Calif., data-storage firm. Each automated assistant, developed by Foster City, Calif., technology firm Conversica, speaks six languages and works around...